The Spectacled Otter

When you get turned into a modern hieroglyphic

did a bit of driving through the state of georgia today and wound up driving through a small town that i later discovered was called newborn, which is an odd name but doesn’t technically have anything wrong with it, except for the fact that i nearly gave myself whiplash doing a double-take at a building sign advertising NEWBORN TAXIDERMY

lack of women and fat people = nightmare whats so complicated

Sometimes a guy in a fanfiction has the ability to read someone's gaze with the same level of detail a wine taster can taste the wine

"He glared at him with anger in his eyes, but behind that longing and sorrow over things left unsaid, a subtle but desperate yearning for things to be different, and with just a hint of roasted nuts right at the end."

we've all heard about the male gaze in media, but we've yet to explore the equally important sommelier gaze

the only fun addition to this post

I love that Jules Verne asked the question "What kind of person could circumnavigate the world in 80 days?" and decided that the answer was not a groundbreaking explorer or genius inventor, but a guy who's really, really, really obsessed with train and boat schedules.

my final paper for my CS degree was literally "how can we algorithmically optimise for the fastest possible circumnavigation route on commercial flights?", which incidentally required me to adopt a very good working knowledge of what flight options are available at what times (and also led to me accidentally memorising several hundred airport codes)

incidentally the fastest possible route seems to be about 51 hours, if you're working from 2022 schedules like i was. if you use current schedules and are very optimistic about how quickly you can transfer between flights, you can maybe get it down to around 48 hours (also known as 25 millivernes).

The very best thing about tumblr is that you can make a post about a 154-year-old novel and get responses like this.

Someday I'm gonna.

reading Kushiel's Dart right now and really enjoying it. you’ve gotta read epic fantasy bullshit every now and then where every page has five names to remember connected to seventeen dynasties with inter-tangled loyalties, and so on. and I find it funny that the central thread of such a complex story is "there is a lady who is hornier than all the other ladies about bdsm because she has a magic eye"

one thing that’s been tripping me up is the use of the word “weeping” or “wept”. because in my mind, that’s full on guttural sobs, so I thought the main character was just constantly having these semi-public breakdowns? but I finally figured out that in the author’s mind, “weeping” = shedding a beautiful little tear that glistens artistically on your cheek. I’m pretty sure. which means all the people’s non-reactions to her make a lot more sense in retrospect

I do also like that everyone treats the main character like a mythical creature, comparing her to a singing trout and a "wolf with the silverest fur", but her special power is just that she's a masochist. like people are throwing themselves after her sobbing, gifting her rings that were reserved for their future wives, etc, but all she's really doing is walking around in a "don't bully me, I'll cum" shirt. except that the shirt is her magical masochism eyeball.

finished it now, what a great book. she literally won a war by being a submissive bottom. this is insanely good propaganda for my people

I really like that whenever people draw gajinkas of birds they pick the more vibrant and colourful of the two morphs. That birdgirl is often not only very transgender but clocky as hell. peace and love.

Schism? Schism today?

Wow, I didn't have "catholic schism" on my 2026 bingo card

will you guys cancel me if i say that queer tragedy has a place in the creative arts and shouldn’t immediately be dismissed as bury your gays

"shipping and blorbofication are not inherently at odds with understanding a story's deep themes" and "some people can't grasp the themes of a story because they never learned how to engage with stories outside of the lens of shipping and blorbofication" are two statements that can coexist

Phenomenal. I didn't think anyone could top Faith No More's cover from Nativity in Black, but damn. Everyone on that stage understood the assignment and nailed it like never before.

FUCKING HELL